


I don't know who I am without you

by AgingPhangirl (Madophelia)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt, dialogue prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 04:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12100437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madophelia/pseuds/AgingPhangirl
Summary: Sometimes Dan wonders if he's lost himself. In the dark at 2am the thoughts swirl around his brain and settle in crooked rows.He doesn't wake Phil.





	I don't know who I am without you

**Author's Note:**

> 900 follower celebration - one line dialogue prompts sent to me on Tumblr

Sometimes Dan wonders if he's lost himself. In the dark at 2am the thoughts swirl around his brain and settle in crooked rows. 

He doesn't wake Phil. 

He runs hands over his arms, his chest, his stomach, reminding himself of his physical presence, is not nearly comforted by the solid state of it, it doesn't stop the spiral of individuality from spinning away from him. 

"We're separate people," he finds himself murmuring at various points. 

"We are," Phil nods, ever confused with Dan's apparent ability to get philosophical out of nowhere. 

"But there's an 'and' that connects us." It's been discussed before."It isn't just branding."

"Is that a bad thing?" Phil asks, and Dan knows that he's really not sure whether it is. 

Dan shrugs, because he isn't either. 

It's 2am again and Dan's stuck on that 'and'. There is Dan, there is Phil, and there is DanAndPhil, a hybrid entity that, somewhere along the line, became a singular. 

"We're separate people," Phil repeats back to him, when the loudness of Dan's thoughts has woken him and he has pulled Dan tight against his side, his grip insistent in its comfort. Always comfort. 

"I just don't know who I am without you," Dan whispers. Speaking it aloud is almost as frightening as the concept itself. 

"You're Dan." 

"I am." 

"And I'm Phil." 

"And." 

He feels Phil's sigh in his hair, but he doesn't hear it where half his face is pressed up tight to Phil's chest. It's hot, his own breath repeating back to him against Phil's t-shirt and yet, as always, it is a comfort. 

"We put it there," Phil says, "We can take it away. If that's what you want." 

"It isn't."

"Then..." 

He's making Phil search for the answer for him, he realises, and Phil hates not having the answer almost as much as Dan does. 

"I just want to know what it means, to have it, and not to." 

The shrug disrupts Dan's positioning but he doesn't complain. He allows Phil the space to physically express what must be exasperation at this point. 

"I don't know how to do that for you."

That's part of the problem, it isn't Phil's job to work stuff out for Dan. And yet, he's become used to at least their combined forces on a problem. 

"I can do it by myself," Dan insists shakily.

"I know," Phil whispers. And that is the end of it. 

A solo interview appearance on a panel for a brand he cares little for is enough to settle it in his head. It's still crooked, but he's used to the angle of it, even though he knows he probably shouldn't be.

"You did great."

Phil. Ever the champion of Dan's talent, even when Dan himself isn't. 

"If felt like a sentence unfinished," he admits, "during the introduction. Like an empty space. I think you fill the empty spaces." 

Phil cocks his head, kind of knowingly, kind of not. Dan isn't sure. 

"The 'and' can stay. I mean, I'd like it to."

"Okay." 

"Do you? Want it to I mean." 

"It wouldn't be there unless we wanted it to be, Dan. The minute you don't it goes away. But it's an assumption in private as much as it is in public. We get very few solo invitations these days. To work event and personal ones." 

"And you're happy with that?" 

"I always have been, yes." 

Dan purses his lips in the dark, lets the thought ruminate a little.

"There is Dan. And there is Phil." Dan repeats.

"And." 

"And... there is part of us in each other, in the empty spaces. And I think I know who I'd be if those empty spaces were empty." 

Phil reaches over and tugs Dan closer again, just a little way, like an invitation. Dan shifts to make up the rest of the distance.

"It's a little codependent," Phil observes, "If you think were just... holding each other up."

Dan lifts his head, finds the direction of Phil's eyes in the inky black of their bedroom and fixes him with a dead stare he can't see. 

"Make no mistake Phil Lester, I can exist without you. I can make myself whole through those empty spaces, I know that now."

Phil remains silent and lets Dan finish his point, letting him find his way there on his own. 

"I just choose not to. Who I am without that 'and' is still capable and aware of itself. With it... I like who I am with it so much better." 

Phil slides his hand over the small of Dan's back and urges his head back into the crook of his shoulder. 

"I know," he whispers, "me too."


End file.
